Thoughts from the interface of science, religion, law and culture

After spending several years touring the country as a stand up comedian, Ed Brayton tired of explaining his jokes to small groups of dazed illiterates and turned to writing as the most common outlet for the voices in his head. He has appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show and the Thom Hartmann Show, and is almost certain that he is the only person ever to make fun of Chuck Norris on C-SPAN.

EVENTS

Akin: Criticism Just Like Beheading

Right Wing Watch got their hands on footage of Todd Akin’s talk to an event hosted by Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum and, boy, was it nuts. He actually said that the strong criticism he got after those idiotic — but entirely sincere, not “misspoken” — comments was just like when Muslims behead people.

@6 There’s a bit of truth in that. Quite a bit of truth. My first major doubts happened when a traveling preacher came to my church and said Evolution couldn’t be true because it wasn’t in the Bible. My brain screamed “BULLSHIT!” immediately. I kept my mouth shut as I didn’t want to be beaten with sticks by a church, but that was about when I started tuning out sermons and scripture.

I imagine that the increase of irreligious people has to do with the prominence of the even crazier positions now. Like Akin’s. I mean, I can almost understand how someone could reject Evolution just through shear ignorance. But rape apologetics and a rape loving god… yeah, I think I would have sprinted to atheism if I had to deal with that.

Every time a politician claims they misspoke, the immediate retort needs to be “Fine, say it again but this time say what you meant to say”. Watch how easy it is when one really misspoke: Obama meant to say “You didn’t build those roads and bridges”.

See? Now let’s see Akin do that. He can’t, because he’s just another liar for Jesus. He meant exactly what he said, he just didn’t anticipate the negative response.

Once again we see the so-called “Conservative” mindset that confuses criticism with censorship. Of course what this means is that what people like Todd Akin really want is for them to be free to say silly / dumb crap and for no one to criticize them. In effect they want to have their critics censored /silenced.